Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Snippets of Senegal

Well, I've vowed not to talk about the wedding, AND it's Tuesday, so... well, I think it's time for a Retrospective! It's been awhile, huh? The timing is good, though, because I've been thinking a lot about Senegal recently, due mostly to a few chats with friends about the subject. Not one specific incident from my time there, but a few jumbled memories that could definitely use some sorting out. By the way, the full set of photos can be found here.


I was there during the dry season, and even though I hadn't expected to, I missed the rain. Dakar is a very sandy city, and sometimes I could actually taste the rain, even though there wasn't anything to taste. I had dreams about it, too. I thought about grass and that clean post-storm smell and rainbows and the way the sky gleams after a storm, and what it feels like to be caught out in the rain, and change into dry clothes after.

I totally romanticized it in my head, and I definitely deserved what I got in response--a rainstorm that caused the shallow sewers to back up and the sand to to turn to mud, so that we were essentially wading around the city up to our ankles in sheep poop. Not exactly the gorgeous, freshening image I'd had in mind.


I struggled with transportation. Relatively speaking, cabs were cheap, especially if you negotiated, which I did. But you had to know exactly where you were going, because it's not like the city was built on a grid or all the drivers were equipped with a GPS. More often than not, you'd be in a cab with a windshield covered in cracks, driving the wrong way (not that such a thing really existed) down sandy alleys while your driver honked and yelled at other drivers doing exactly the same thing and you tried to remember the Wolof for, "Turn left past the Shell station."

Otherwise, you could take a car rapide, a very old, decrepit bus type vehicle that cost about ten cents no matter where you were going. Again, difficult to navigate--a kid would hang off the back of the car, shouting destinations, and if you were like me and struggled to distinguish the syllables of Wolof, it could be hard to tell where it was headed.

One of the kids on my program was in a car rapide, sharing a seat with a Senegalese woman, when they went over a bump and the seat fell right off the wall. In rage, the woman who'd been sharing his seat, who must have been twice his size, stood up and started yelling at him about how his jaay fonde, a Wolof expression that essentially means "big ass," broke the seat.


Not long after my arrival in Senegal, we took a trip to the famous island of Goree, which is known as a historical slave trade center, although in reality very few slaves were actually brought through there. It's a big tourist destination, and the locals know it--as the ferry pulls up, there are young boys swimming in the water, and the tourists throw coins to them. The boys dive for the coins and catch them in their mouths. When I first saw the boys in the water, I thought they were just swimming. Then I realized they were catching coins in their mouths, and then I was depressed.


I lived in a neighborhood located about a ten-minute walk from a gorgeous beach. Gorgeous until you turned around and saw the ditch full of trash behind it. And until you started thinking about the implications of the mansions along the water owned by toubabs (white people) while so many people in Dakar are poor. Still, the beach was gorgeous, and we spent quite a lot of time there, sitting on the rocky steps drinking wine from a box.



My experience in Senegal was defined by people more than anything else, and yet the only friends from my time there that I stayed in touch with were other Americans. Part of that is the technology difference--not much email, not great snail mail, expensive phone calls. But part of it is the cultural difference, and the weirdness that comes from leaving behind these people that you care about, in this place that is so different from your own, and going back to your life that is cushy and comfortable by comparison. It's hard to bridge that gap, and I never really did it.

At this point, my memories of my time there are more a collection of sensory experiences than anything else. Maybe that means I've moved on. I think it's for the best.

21 comments:

  1. Wow, you've had such great opportunities to live in other parts of the world!

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  2. Oh, YAY! A retrospective! Love.

    I live in fear of going to a place where I have to NEGOTIATE for transportation. Ohgodohgodohgod.

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  3. I'm so excited that you posted this today! I lived in Senegal and I think you are the ONLY OTHER PERSON I have ever heard of who lived there. We were there before you, I think--we were there 1999-2000. But thanks for posting this! We used to ride the car rapides and during Tabaski people would go to the market and buy their sheep and then tie the live sheep to the top of the car rapide and then we would careen down the crowded streets of Dakar with the sheep bleating pitifully the whole way. Fun times.

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  4. You've probably written about this before, but I'm wondering how you ended up going to Senegal. It sounds like a great experience--one of those empowering, self-sufficient times after which you probably said to yourself, "If I could do that, I can do ANYTHING!"

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  5. What a wonderful experience that you'll get to share with your kids someday. I hope it inspires them to dream big as well.

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  6. Wow. Beautiful pictures but I don't think I'd like to go there.

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  7. I agree with playintherain. WHat great opportunities you've had! I'm glad you share them.

    And that's crazy about the boys swimming for coins. I'd feel bad throwing them a coin to dive for!

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  8. One of my bridesmaids' younger sisters is in the Peace Corps in Senegal. My gal-pal went to visit her sister there last winter. Oh, the stories I heard. Makes me feel bad for all I take for granted living in the good ole U S of A.

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  9. This is amazing. I never knew this Jess. Thank you for sharing!

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  10. i had a lot of the same feelings about morocco (and i was only there for a week). the multi-million dollar mosques next to neighborhoods with piles of trash in the middle of the dusty roads; the kids, everywhere, begging for money, and the unbelievable, ridiculous gulf in living conditions and pricing between here and there. i usually spent about $3/night for a hotel room there, i think.

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  11. I was SO GOOD at negotiating cab fare in Dakar, and I walked a good deal, I hardly ever got in a car rapide. Besides the fact I could never quite figure out where they were actually going... Sigh. Good memories.

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  12. That seems like such a great experience, although I'm not sure if I would like to go there. I guess it really makes you thankful for what we have.

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  13. I can definitely relate to the strange feeling about keeping in touch, and culture differences. I felt like a different person after coming home from abroad. But then I got used to home again, and I again felt like a different person. Remembering is like getting back in touch with who you were.

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  14. Moved on, but not forgotten. That's good.

    You learned important things. Even better.

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  15. Those pictures are gorgeous! Sounds like a great time. Even despite the cab rides.

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  16. This is a great retrospective. I feel much the same way about my experience wih losing touch with people I lived with in Cameroon. I lived there for a short time, but it was next to impossible to communicate with anyone in the town I lived after I left. No phones (well, there was ONE and it was if-y), unreliable mail. Obv, no computers. Maybe things are different now; this was 10 years ago.

    Anyway, I really enjoyed reading this.

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  17. I may have missed this in an old post, but why did you choose Senegal? Just curious, as it is a bit off the beaten study abroad path!

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  18. This is such a beautiful post, thank you so much for sharing!!

    xox

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  19. Wow what an amazing experience!

    Sometimes I want to run away and have another life in a new country. Luckily I think I'd miss this one far too much to be gone for long.

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  20. you've been all over the place!! were you participating in some special programs that helped you out with this stuff? do tell me more! i'd love to experience all of that!

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